


Initiation

by FLWhite



Category: Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Genre: Blood Magic, Bloodplay, M/M, Master/Servant, Occult, Villains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 10:48:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13702923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FLWhite/pseuds/FLWhite
Summary: "Daniel," says his beautiful Master, whose hair catches the moonlight and whose fingers, cool and firm, are removing his cravat, his collar, his shirt. "Danny, my boy, you shall be at my side in the coming storm. We shall stand together at the prow of the ship and oh, how we will make them grovel."***Digging up some ancient bits and bobs and slappin' 'em down here. Henry Blackwood initiates Daniel Coward. (Written 2010.)





	Initiation

The fragrance of myrrh mingles well with the savor of blood, and both are all the more delicious when he tastes it on Harry's tongue.  
  
That entire day through, all his senses had been cold with fear, fear and guilt that he should fear while believing as he did in Harry's return. His work had seemed even more meaningless, the bland-faced idiots all about more pathetic. After that stretch of endless, hopeless chill, the heat within the circle of those powerful arms, the motion of that tongue on his face and neck, is especially overwhelming. They sit very still in the lozenge of moonlight cast through the wide panes of his favorite bay window, set in the eastern wall of his study.  
  
"Daniel." Harry looks very grave, but his dark eyes gleam in the gray-blue shadows.  
  
"Ye--" he is forced by the lump of aching joy in his throat to swallow once or twice. "Yes, Master?"  
  
"Look at me, Daniel." He dutifully does so. "Our next steps will have to be taken with care." The "our" so thrills him that he has to look away for a moment or two. When he is able to meet his master's face again, Harry is softly smiling.  
  
The lines of his face are still much the same as when they were boys, himself sixteen and Harry nineteen, also on this window-seat, wrapped in a huge rough Karakachan woolen blanket and naked underneath as it had been just after the end of Daniel's three-day initiation rites into the Brotherhood. It was irregular to initiate before seventeen, but his father had produced some Understandings among the elders. There on the same striped cushion they had groped with wild hands at each other's flesh, dragged their teeth on hair and skin blindly, angrily, and left each other in ecstatic tears. He feels these rising now in spite of his attempts to blink them back.  
  
"Daniel," says his beautiful Master, whose hair catches the moonlight and whose fingers, cool and firm, are removing his cravat, his collar, his shirt. "Danny, my boy, you shall be at my side in the coming storm. We shall stand together at the prow of the ship and oh, how we will make them grovel. "  
  
"Yes, Master." He quivers, not because the air that seeps through the leaded seams of his window is cold, but because the blaze of warmth in him feels as though it is consuming him. He sinks to his knees. With face turned to the parquet floor and his wrists offered to the kiss of iron and leather, he waits: anticipation shudders through his gut and thighs and collects, straining, against the gilt buttons of his fly. He nearly comes when he feels the manacles close, wrapped heavily from the base of his palm to halfway up toward his elbows like loving serpents.  
  
Harry sees all this, of course, and with great gentleness, shows him the knife. It is a hunting knife, thick and damascened, its fuller deep, the belly of its blade smooth as a boy's face. "Are you ready, Danny?"  
  
"I am ready, Master." The deep blackness of the blindfold slides over him like a caress. He hears the matches being struck and the flame fizzing on the candle-wicks and the painful excitement makes his tears well up against the silk. The blade presses against his right bicep, draws a stinging cross inscribed in a circle there: Earth. A circled dot, the Sun, on the left bicep. A crescent moon on his sternum, to call for secrecy and stealth. Slipping over his shoulder, in smooth practiced strokes, an inverted heptagram touching both shoulder-blades and stretching down to the small of his back.  
  
"Behold the symbols and names of the Creator, which give unto thee forever terror and fear. Obey then, by the virtue of these Mysteries of Mysteries." Harry's voice, always sonorous, passing down to him from high above, has become soft, a lover's.  
  
Daniel trembles so violently that he feels his blood, flowing delicately from the clean-cut wounds, tracing slanted trails across his skin. "Aye, Har--Master--! I hear you and I obey."  
  
"By the virtue of these symbols, and because thou hast been obedient, and hast obeyed the commandments of the Creator, feel and inhale this odor; be there peace between us and thee; be thou ever ready to come when thou shall be cited and called; and may the blessing of the Four Orders be upon thee, provided thou art obedient and prompt, to come unto us without solemn rites and observances on our part.  
  
"Rise now," says Harry, placing his broad hand hotly upon the crown of Daniel's head. "Rise now and be thou as my own hand, my own foot, my own flesh."  
  
"O Master," replies Daniel, as prescribed, feeling himself running over with strength, hearing the metallic chime of his voice ringing against the glass-fronted bookshelves that line the study. "Aye, aye, and aye."  
  
He stumbles as he stands, and is pulled by the straps across his wrists to his feet and to the devouring lips of his master. These suck at mouth and jaw and neck as though to tear meat from bone, then dwell with relish on the symbols, forcing the blood, just slowing, to flow again. "Now bow." Daniel kneels; a jerk on his bonds brings him to the floor, knocking him momentarily breathless. "Kiss me, Danny. Kiss me and show me how well you love me." With infinite tenderness, Daniel Coward cranes forward and presses his lips to the tips of Henry Blackwood's square-toed boots.  
  
"Now come." Crying aloud with helpless bliss, he obeys.


End file.
